FOOD. ROCK ENGRAVINGS. 441 



Then they rub themselves all over with blubber, and anoint 

 their favourite wives in the same way ; after which they cut 

 down through the blubber to the beef, which they sometimes 

 eat raw and sometimes broil on pointed sticks. As other 

 natives arrive, they " fairly eat their way into the whale, and 

 you see them climbing in and about the stinking carcase, 

 choosing titbits." For days " they remain by the carcase, 

 rubbed from head to foot with stinking blubber, gorged to 

 repletion with putrid meat out of temper from indigestion, 

 and therefore engaged in constant frays suffering from a 

 cutaneous disorder by high feeding and altogether a dis- 

 gusting spectacle. There is no sight in the world," Captain 

 Grey adds, " more revolting than to see a young and gracefully 

 formed native girl stepping out of the carcase of a putrid 

 whale." The Australians -also mash up bones and suck out 

 the fat contained in them. Like other savages, they are ex- 

 cessively fond of fatty substances. 



In a cave on the north-eastern coast, Mr. Cunningham 

 observed certain " tolerable figures of sharks, porpoises, turtles, 

 lizards, trepang, starfish, clubs, canoes, water -gourds, and 

 some quadrupeds which were probably intended to represent 

 kangaroos and dogs." The natives round Sydney also fre- 

 quently drew upon the rocks " various figures of fish, clubs, 

 swords, animals, and branches of trees, not contemptibly 

 represented."* Other tribes are very deficient in art, and, 

 according to Mr. Oldfield, are "quite unable to realize the 

 most vivid artistic representations. On being shown a large 

 coloured engraving of an aboriginal New Hollander, one de- 

 clared it to be a ship, another a kangaroo, and so on ; not one 

 of a dozen identifying the portrait as having any connexion 

 with himself." ( It is not, however, quite clear to me that 

 they were not poking fun at Mr. Oldfield. 



* King, vol. ii. p. 26; Grey, vol. i. t Oldfield on the Aborigines of 



p. 259; Collins, p. 381. Australia. Transactions of the Eth- 



nological Society, New Ser. vol. iii. 



